{Prophecy [continued]}[21st June 1971]

[Redbook1:208-210][19710621a]{Prophecy [continued]}[21st June 1971]

Monday 21st June 1971 [continued]

            One thing that many agree on is that a time of trouble is coming -- but you don't have to be a prophet to believe that.  Nor surprisingly do you have to deduce it to know it.  Of course, the recent history of civilised man is a series of closely-spaced troubles, and instinct may justifiably conclude that these will continue to occur.  But instinct may take account of present trends in more detail, and we should pay attention at least to the effects of that belief, even if not to their accuracy.

            The most worrying thing about prophecy is not its ‘supernatural’ origin: I do not believe in ‘the supernatural’, because I believe that everything can be explained at some level (It is the label that is wrong).  What is difficult to reconcile with reality is the time-machine paradox: if you go back in time to kill your father as a child, you will not be born, so you will not kill your father, so you will be born, so you will kill your father ... etc..  Probability prophecy gets round this to some extent: this would explain what Nostradamus prophesied which hasn't happened; it might have happened.  Otherwise the future would be unchangeable for us once prophesied by him -- an appalling thought.  But the probability theory itself would need a certain re-adjustment of orthodox academic approaches to history.

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